Painting the hull....

Well, a lot has happened since I last posted.

The soft cockpit sole has been fixed. That could not have been accomplished without the help of my great (and thin) friend Graham. He was able to worm past my rudder post and remove the bottom of the cockpit sole and the soggy balsa core, (I despise the use of balsa on a boat), and glassed in 1/2" marine plywood THEN we got some 1/2" foam pipe insulation from Lowes, split that in half lengthwise and glassed that in too. That and the stainless steel bars I used for backing plates for the steering pedestal has made my cockpit bulletproof. Sorry, way too busy and dirty to even think about touching the camera for pictures.

The wife and I have done a shitload of work on the boat, but it is mostly stuff you don't see so we decided we needed a visual accomplishment, hence the decision to paint the hull. Once again our friend Graham had ideas. Graham used to build Sharks , a racing sailboat and they used automotive paint, Think Corvettes), as there is a ton of Sharks out there is seemed a viable, (read cheaper), alternative to marine $$$ paint.

So, the wife and I spent a month of weekends prepping the hull, that is sanding and filling gouges and war wound, then repeating because we always found more that we missed. A 38' hull has a lot of area.

The above is the hull sanded. The yellow is the factory primer that we sanded down to. The epoxy repairs are in the yellow and are pretty much transparent when cured. That tank on wheels beside the boat is the portable pump out station. Yes, we had a pump out on the hard.

That is the boat primed. That is my friend Graham showing off his bod. The paint and primer I got was close to a $1000 and is designed to be sprayed on. We had the spray gun cocked and loaded then the owner of the yard said no spraying was allowed. Drat. So we rolled and tipped I liked the results. Graham didn't.

That is the hull with two coats of white rolled and tipped on. next spring we will put the third coat on then launch.

Leaking oil line on a Perkins 4-107

Ahh, the mighty Perkins developed a leaking oil line between the lube oil pump and the oil cooler.Not too difficult to change one would think, what with JIC fittings at both ends and I have the proper sized tube wrench to do the loosening. Both ends are now loose, easy peasy. I can't remove the line, both ends are flop-cocking about but I can't remove it. WTF? Turns out the Perkins engineers decided to clamp the middle of the hose to the centre of the oil pan With my nimble fingers I determined that it was definitely clamped. Borrowed a scope from work and had a look-see. Sure enough it was clamped and the clamp itself was bent against the flat of the nut (or bolt head), couldn't tell what for sure. (If it was a bolt and nut combination then I know for a fact that a sadistic design engineer was involved.). Solution: This was my wifes idea....use a hacksaw blade wrapped with a facecloth and cut the bastard lin in half. 15 sweaty minutes later I cut through the adamantium wire reinforced lube oil line and pulled them out. As I couldn't see what I was doing I suspect the line was regenerating itself ala Wolverine. Just got to get the line to a hose shop and get them to make 4" longer and with an anti-chaffe cover, it will hang freely when I install it.

Calculating distance, speed and time for plotting.

Here is a math triangle. It is very important for me as a future navigator to be able to do calculations quickly and easily.

Here how it works:

You want to know distance. put you finger over the D. What remains is the letters S & T. As the Speed and Time are beside each other, you multiply them to get your distance.

Example: What distance do you travel when you going 7.2 knots for 3 hours?

Solution: Place your finger over the D and multiply the Speed and Time;
                                                                                  7.2 x 3 = 21.6 nautical miles.


Example: What is your speed when you have travelled 8 nautical miles for 4 hours?

Solution: Place your finger over the S and divide Distance by Time;
                                                                         8 / 4 = 2 knots.

Example: How much time did you take, travelling 14.3 miles at 6.4 knots?

Solution: Place your finger over the T and divide the Distance by Speed;
                                                                              14.3 / 6.4 = 2.234375 or 2.2 hours.

What is .2 hours you ask? Good question as the time is the confusing part here.

To convert the .2 hours to minutes you have to multiply .2 by 60 with is 12 minutes so it took you 2 hrs and 12 minutes to travel 14.3 miles at 6.4 knots.

To solve problems when time is hours and minutes, you must convert the minutes to the base ten like in the above example.

You have 2 hours and 22 minutes. To convert the minutes divide them by 60. 22 / 60 = .36666 or .37. This means the time is 2.37 hours.

Example: You travelled 8.8 nautical miles 2.37 hours, what is your Speed?

Solution: Put your finger over the S and divide the Distance by the Time;
                                                                              8.8 / 2.37 = a blistering 3.71 knots.

I have an exam on this shit in two days.

Blog repaired?

Just a test post to see if I got the bugs worked out yet. Here is a picture of our boat, take by the PO while at anchor somewhere. Nope, still can't add fucking images.

THERE! I Triumph!